From the OpenNTF Way Back Machine

While cleaning up my Mac today I found this oldie but goodie from 2002:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

OpenNTF.org Releases OpenNTF Mail V1.0 for Lotus Notes 6

 Vancouver, WA – October 15, 2002 – OpenNTF.org has announced OpenNTF Mail Version 1.0 for Lotus Notes 6.  OpenNTF Mail is based on the standard Lotus Notes 6 mail template and adds many additional enhancements.  These enhancements include:

  • Quick Mail – A feature that allows the user to quickly compose a new memo to predefined recipients
  • Quick Forward – A feature that allows the user to predefine recipients, and using drag and drop, quickly forward a message
  • Reply and Forward indicators added to views
  • Follow-Up – Ability to flag messages for Follow-Up and, using drag and drop, place them in a
    Follow-Up folder
  • User Interface – Modified the Mail and To Do user interfaces to more closely resemble the Calendar color scheme
  • Productivity Actions
    • Added a Send/Receive action to the Mail outline
    • Added a Find Memo action to the Mail outline
    • Added the Outbox action to the Mail Outline
    • Added a Resend Memo action to the Sent view

Other features include an Advanced tab in the Tools | Show Delivery Information dialog to show additional message header information; a feature that lets the user stop the sending of a Return Receipt on a message; added a Message Size indicator within a Memo; modified views and folders to contain date and time; modified the size column to show kilobytes instead of bytes; and added a key icon indicator to the Inbox to let you know that a message is encrypted.

After meeting on the OpenNTF.org web site, a small group of OpenNTF.org developers or “cooks”, from Norway, The Netherlands, Australia, The United States, France, Chile and Canada, came together to collectively add features to the Notes 6 mail template.  The group used the OpenNTF Project Management Template (developed earlier this year) to manage feature requests, task management, bug tracking, documentation, discussions, news and other application development tasks.   Bruce Elgort, an “Iron Chef” for the OpenNTF Mail template, says “Working with a team of developers whom had never even met, many living in different time zones, is simply amazing!  We went from specification to a deliverable in two weeks.  Using email, Notes replication, Sametime Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing we had all the tools we needed to work as a global team.  Can you say collaborate?”   Vince Shuurman (Oirschot, The Netherlands) who is also an “Iron Chef” on the project says “We were able to work separately and replicate the portions of the template we were responsible for.  We simply refreshed our local mail templates and were then working with the latest build.  We also used the new Domino Designer 6 “design-element-locking” feature to control edits to design elements.”

The OpenNTF Mail Template V1.0 will be available on the organization’s web site at http://www.OpenNTF.org within 7-10 days.

About OpeNTF.org

OpenNTF.org was formed in December 2001 by Bruce Elgort and Nathan Freeman.  The mission of OpenNTF.org is to provide applications for Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino as open source which may be freely distributed, in order to increase the awareness of the power of Lotus Notes and Domino.

Contact:

Bruce Elgort
Co-Founder, OpenNTF.org
Bruce.Elgort@OpenNTF.org

Nathan Freeman
Co-Founder, OpenNTF.org
Nathan.T.Freeman@OpenNTF.org

Do you remember this?

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Author: Bruce Elgort

You’ll find this technology professor – an award-winning instructor at Clark College – working hard to inspire and challenge his students with meaningful web development and programming experiences. With a skinny vanilla latte (no foam) in hand, Bruce loves to tinker and test the boundaries of existing and emerging technologies, to then guide hungry minds through memorable, educational journeys to showcase with passion the ever-evolving innovations of society. An industry leader, Bruce is known for co-developing Elguji’s IdeaJam software, and is recognized by IBM as an ‘IBM Champion’ for being an innovative thought leader in cloud technologies.

3 thoughts on “From the OpenNTF Way Back Machine”

  1. Certainly do remember, Bruce! It’s amazing how many of those features made it into the default mail template shipped by IBM. For me it was the OpenNTF Mail Template that really got open source noticed by the wider Notes/Domino marketplace – it hindsight, it was an amazing achievement.

  3. I discovered this one a few years later. I was at the time working in a company that were on Notes 5.4 and boy did the standard mail template in Notes suck at that time. Outlook and other mail clients were much better.
    I replaced the design of my own mail template with this one every single day (since our servers replaced it with the standard) and never looked back. It wasn’t until 8.5.1 that the mail template in Notes became good.

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